When Troy Aikman was carving out a Hall of Fame career as quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, he didn’t worry much about what he would do when his National Football League playing days were over.
And he certainly didn’t think he would wind up in the broadcast booth.
“I used to watch telecasts,” Aikman said, “and I wondered, ‘How can you talk about football that long?’”
Aikman, 41, will be talking about football for hours Sunday night as he provides the analysis and Joe Buck delivers the play-by-play on Fox’s telecast of Super Bowl XLII from the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
Aikman, who piloted the Cowboys to three Super Bowl victories as the team’s starting quarterback from 1989-2000, also got his first taste of TV while he was with the team. In 1994-95, he co-hosted a weekly program in Dallas with longtime NFL broadcaster Pat Summerall. “I had fun with that,” Aikman said, “but I wasn’t thinking of TV.”
TV was thinking of Aikman, though.
“As a potential broadcasting talent, he was very much under the radar, even though he was going to be a Hall of Fame quarterback and had Super Bowl rings,” said Ed Goren, president of Fox Sports.
“A lot of people in broadcasting looked at Troy as who he was around the press when he was quarterbacking the Cowboys. That individual never gave the press any headline material. He would never embarrass a teammate or give the opponent any fodder. And Troy is a very private individual and somewhat soft-spoken. He’s not controversial.”
But Aikman’s teammates and other acquaintances were aware that he could be opinionated.
“People who knew him said he had definite ideas about how the game should be played, that he was a leader in the locker room and he has a wonderful sense of humor,” Goren said.
So before Aikman retired, Goren offered him a chance to announce Fox’s off-season NFL Europe games — part lark, part audition.
“It was a wonderful little laboratory for us to see what we thought of guys in the booth,” Goren said, “and for them to see if it was something they’d like after retirement.”
By 2001, when Aikman retired, he had two NFL Europe seasons behind him and an offer from Fox in front of him. He joined Daryl Johnston and Dick Stockton, the network’s No. 2 broadcast team, and moved to the A-team the following year.
Aikman believes his sense of timing was a big factor in his getting noticed and rapidly promoted — and Goren bears that out.
“I think what he liked,” Aikman said, “was that I was able to say something in the window of time you have, and then stop and let the play-by-play man do what he does. That’s not a problem for me.”
Aikman garnered an Emmy nomination in 2004. He and Buck, a six-time Emmy winner, are broadcasting their second Super Bowl together, with Pam Oliver and Chris Myers on the sidelines.
Aikman lives in Dallas with his wife, Rhonda Worthey and their three daughters. He’s involved in commercial real estate and also owns a minority position in a NASCAR racing team, along with Roger Staubach, who quarterbacked the Cowboys two decades before him.
But for much of the year, Aikman finds time to stay immersed in football. Working in television, Goren said, gives athletes a chance to stay close to a sport they’ve played all their lives.
“You’re part of a team; you study film and you get on the plane afterward and rethink the game,” Goren said. “The only difference is that when you get up Monday morning, you’re not as sore.”
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